Pharmacology Math: Nursing Conversions and Practice Questions

Hey everyone! Today we're gonna go over Pharmacology Basics and math we're gonna go over conversions and then lots of practice questions. You're watching me Dr. Kendall Wyatt from Paramedic to Registered Nurse now turn physician I've been told I'm kind of nerdy but that's only because I never stop learning if you'd like to check out something I've been part of the past few years check out Picmonic, the link is in the description oh and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for my newest videos to help you get through your next exam. Today we're gonna go over conversions now not just one or two conversions we're gonna go over a bunch of different conversions you need to know and these are the but most basic things you really got to get started with in nursing school and then lots of practice questions to get them to get get you comfortable so you can get started and I don't know be great at math because isn't that what everybody wants to do be great at math right yeah first off I just want to kinda show you this chart it's got lots of stuff on it lots of numbers really it's all the stuff you need to remember now we've got a little link down in the bottom of the video so you can go and download two pages of all of these things you need to know but this is the core of it and then a couple of the other charts that we're going to show you later so as we get started in conversions the first thing is the lovely us system right well the us you know it likes to be special and so we have our own system and it's really important that you need to remember eyes a lot of different numbers now there really aren't that many to memorize but if you don't use them all the time they're hard they're hard to remember they're hard to keep track of well the first thing is our else's so ounces you've got to kind of member that one ounce is equivalent to thirty milliliters now almost everything in medicine is milliliters that you're going to see it's not until you go in the nursing world we have these calculations on your tests but also the things you need to know are typically asking all of the things in the u.s. system and asking you to convert to MLS so at the most basic if you know milliliters one ounce it's about 30 ml now I'm gonna ask you again later but technically if you want to get technical it's like 29 point something but you can remember 30ml that's what you need to remember one ounce is 30ml now as we go bigger in the u.s. system 30ml one ounce right well then we go to cup well how many Ounces are in a cup well there's eight ounces in one cup so one little cup cup cup cup cups there's eight ounces in there you got to remember that so if I were to ask you how many milliliters are in a cup you would be able to remember right well the thing you've got to do is calculate a lot of these things for all of your math equations and this is what we're gonna do as we go through this and then we're gonna get a little bit more complex as we go along of course so how many ml's are in one cup well you can know of course that one cup is equal to how many ounces right well one cup is equal to eight ounces so eight ounces but eight ounces doesn't equal amounts right milliliters no so what you need to do is you've got to take your one cup and remember that it's eight ounces so one cup equals eight then you take your eight ounces and you multiply that by how many ml's are in each ounce which is 30 so 30 times eight would give you 240 milliliters so this is pretty basic but you've got to get this concept and what I like to always do is you have to say well in any question that you run up against you've got to just stop and say what is the question asking me what's the form that it's asking me well the question is asking me in MLS that questions me asking in how many paper sacks of something right no not really but what if it did you've got to know that what is it asking me what unit of measure is asking me and then you've got to say what unit of measure do I have well if you have cups and you've got to get two MLS well you got to get there some way now maybe you already knew that it was 240 ml great don't try to memorize all of those different numbers because way too much you've got to be able to quickly break it down one cup is eight ounces eight ounces is 30ml one times eight and eight times 30 is 240 so you get 240 MLS so let's go ahead and move up to some bigger ones so we have cups cups are fun right cup cup cup but also we've got now the only pine I know is never mind we're not gonna go there but one pint well what's the size of a pint well a pint is equal to 2 cups 2 cups equals one pint how much is a cup again how many ounces 8 so if you were if I were to ask you how many Ounces are in two cups well then you say 2 times 8 is 16 16 ounces is a pint right that's exactly right and that's what you've got to be able to calculate these through now the next size up is one quart one quart is equal to two pints you see a pattern here two cups to pints one quart right just kind of gets bigger now what if I was to say we go to gallon well so how many gal how many quarts now are in a gallon one gallon is equal to four quarts and that's where it just gets confusing so what I always remember is that two cups to pints four quarts and I kind of remember that because you know they get bigger but two plus two is four so two cups to pints use four quarts so that's where I remember the sizes and I get it mixed up and I always have to stop and think and really think about the layers of how they go every single time even even now I stop and I have to look at my fingers and I can't even remember from my left from my right someday so don't feel bad now what if I asked you how many Ounces are in a gallon now maybe you memorized it okay fine that's not what you really want to do because it's a lot of numbers and the likelihood that you mess those up just it grows exponentially the more numbers you try to memorize but if you know how many sizes are in each one then you can calculate so one gallon is equal to 4 quarts right so 4 quarts and you could say well how many cups are in a gallon you could do that and then calculate that by 8 that's what you want to do but what I like to do is just think through the whole thing so I say 1 gallon equals 4 quarts and 1 quart equals 2 pints when pine is 2 cups and one cup is 8 ounces and 1 ounces 30 ml just like we did over here right and what you can do is you can multiply all the numbers so for 4 quarts times 2 pints times 2 cups equals 16 cups right 16 cups in one gallon and if you remember 16 cups you could memorize that number that's a good one to remember then you could say that 16 times 8 ounces in each cup times 30ml would give you 3,000 840 MLS now remember the 30 MLS is an estimate it's like 29.6 something I can't remember it out I've got it on a slide here but I never remember i's dit because i know it's about 30 and that's what you really got to remember because it's an estimate you're not gonna get super finite numbers like that most most of the time inside of inside of the math but here it is again just to show you that all of these all the way across the board are equal one gallon is equal to 4 quarts four quarts is equal to 8 pints one gallon is equal to 8 pints and these are all equivalent across the board 16 cups is equal to 1 gallon 128 ounces or 3 3840 MLS and of course that's approximate with our with our mlc so you could memorize this and this is in that handout sheet that you can gave you just look down in the bottom in the information section it's got all those this this exact one in there all of those are equivalent so there's 8 pints in a gallon there's 16 cups in a gallon there's 4 quarts in a gallon that may be a better way for some people I teach this different ways some people like the top part how we've got to appear to memorize which one goes into which some people just like to remember memorize this entire chart right here so you remember 128 ounces in a gallon you remember 8 pints in a gallon and then you can divide across these to remember to calculate out whichever one you want that's up to you next I want to go over to the most important thing you've got to be know now of course everything is the most important that's a little tidbit I just lied but uh what you need really must know are you gonna see a lot our pounds and kilograms you've got to know it and you've got to be able to not mix it up and you got to be able do it on the fly cuz this is something you just don't want to miss points on and you don't want to mess up in the real world either because you make some really embarrassing mistakes pounds and kilograms I've got a little pic Manik character in here for anorexia Rex which you can check out in the pic Manik learning system but I just like this low care tree so cute what's the what's what is 1 pound 1 kilogram right you've got to be able to go back and forth well what you've got remember is you've got to memorize it one kilogram is equal to 2.2 pounds its approximation again 2.2 pounds now when you think about these pounds to kilograms the only thing you're gonna mix up which I used to do it all the time is D divided you multiply which one do you have what do you do right well it's actually pretty easy I like to use a logic check well what's my logic tank well it's kind of crude but I remember that pounds the pounds numbers are always higher now how do I remember that well pounds or what we use here in America and which ones always bigger if we were measuring weights Americans right of course exactly so remember that pounds are bigger so the number that you're getting should be larger if you're converting from kilograms to pounds now the other one that I like to use too is to make sure you know your own weight calculate it out and put it in your mind because which one do you want to remember a number if you're measuring your weight well you want to know kilograms cuz it makes you look thinner because it's smaller in the metric system and that's what's really important so if I had a hundred kilograms what's a hundred kilograms in pounds well a hundred times 2.2 is 220 pounds and that's another you know you can just also think about that as well but compare it to yourself and of course you can say whether you're more or less than 220 pounds but you can keep that to yourself now if dr. Wyatt weighs 135 pounds what's his weight in kilograms hmm well of course it's very very very small and light right because I don't eat Cheetos all the time I don't know it's not true now 135 pounds now you know you need to go to a smaller number because it's kilograms right so do you multiply or divide well to do a smaller you're going to divide so you take 135 divided by 2 point 2 which is kilograms and that's going to give you dr. Wyatt's weight 61 point 3 6 kilograms I like that I think I'll take it now you can calculate your own weight out and you know I don't care if you lie or not but use an approximation so you remember but make sure you know your own weight in kilograms it's really important because then you can always remember next let's move on to milliliters and ounces definitely something you've gotta know now we talked a little bit about milliliters downs remember one ounce equals about 30 MLS well I could never remember that it's 29.57 because you know what it's not really that important now maybe you've got an evil instructor out there I know I've had one too and they want you to know 29.57 well sorry for you however you remembering 30 is so much easier and it's pretty much straight on for the math but how can you always remember ml's two ounces what's a good way for you to remember well I always like to remember 16 ounces because it's a nice popular beverage size right and 16 ounces is times 30ml about 480 ml now why did I tell you that why is it important well there's a really great example out there that you can apply to real life which I absolutely love and you may have been wondering now if you bought a water bottle everybody bought a water bottle and destroy the environment a little bit with the plastic right yeah guilty now what about those water bottles why are they 16.9 fluid ounces why well what if you did the math what if you did the math what is a sixteen point nine ounce bottle in MLS what's really important and it helps you memorize there's that way for a reason because how many ml is a sixteen point nine well if you multiplied it by thirty you're gonna get a weird 504 or 506 whatever it is in my head I can't remember but if you multiply it by 29.57 you'll get a wonderful beautiful even 500ml mmm isn't that convenient you can use that example to remember that those crazy water bottles now I'm not talking about the one you buy it the gas station that's 20 ounces cuz you know that's that's cheating I'm talking about the ones you buy in the 24 pack that are cheap 16.9 fluid ounces and 500 MLS super easy to remember that way you can apply something you know to something you don't know and you won't forget that's really the important the best thing to remember about when you're learning something take something you don't know apply it to something you do and then you can remember now another important fun little tidbit fact of 500 ml of water how much does that weigh what is it weigh well conveniently 500 MLS weighs approximately one pound and that's a little another fun fact that you can remember now moving on to inches to centimeters what do you need to know about inches of centimeters why are they so important well you got to measure wounds you got to measure all this stuff and you need to know inches in centimeters super important now when you think about inches and centimeters inches one inch equals about 2.54 centimeters don't forget that one one inch 2.54 centimeters now I would like to think that I'm super tall you know if someone went said you're as tall as you feel and I feel like I'm about 6-3 I'm just saying now unfortunately dr. Wyatt is 66.5 don't forget the point five is very important very proud of that sixty six point five inches tall what is my height in centimeters hmm now if you think about it there are lots of ways to do this well not really sixty six point five inches x what you need two point five four centimeters equals what well sixty six point five times two point five four will give you the answer in centimeters and that's approximately or exactly 167 point six four centimeters that's what you need to know so that's right 167 point six four centimeters I feel so much taller in centimeters I know right I love the metric system I feel taller I feel skinnier I love it that's all I got to say now when you think about this what I want you to do is I want you to know your own height because I you know how many inches you are tall right well everyone wants to be a little taller so I want you to make sure you you convert your own height to centimeters so you know what it is and it also gives you another great example now why do I have this beautiful ruler in here and it's not to make you remember you know second grade when you got hit by them that never happened I was good in second grade I was a great student no one ever hit me with a ruler that's for our psyche video for therapy but you can remember the ruler because it's really good example to help you again put a real-life example now if you've never seen a ruler I don't know what to tell you but a ruler typically is two sides and one sides and inches and the other sides and centimeters so how long is a 12-inch ruler in centimeters well you can do the math right 12 times 2.54 is gonna give you approximately thirty point four eight and you can remember that really easy because one side is twelve and the other side is thirty but it doesn't go all the way to the edge I always wondered that in grade school now I know why hmm whatever now let's move on to another really important topic teaspoons in tablespoons I hate these things let me tell you what number one because I got some at the big lots and they they're not the right size they're not real teaspoons in tablespoons I'm not knocking Big Lots but I don't know what happened to him that's all I gotta say but they're not right now what's important to know about teaspoons and tablespoons you're gonna get a lot of dosage questions about these because they're tricky and I think they're a little slightly evil because you just have to memorize them well what do you want to memorise them with there's a couple of different things first off you've got to remember that a teaspoon is five in those now it's a beautiful teaspoon that's nice little rounded edge or you know whatever 5 MLS really important but what's a tablespoon well a teaspoon is equal a teaspoons of 5 ml sorry and a tablespoon is equal to three teaspoons right hmm ok but you could also just remember that a tablespoon is equal to about 15 MLS so one tablespoon is 15 ml or 1 tablespoon is two three teaspoons so you could say that you could do the math there so five in those times three equals fifteen that gives you the answer so let's do a practice question and this is where we start applying more and more questions to real-life scenarios that you're going to encounter in the real world and on your exams so you're to administer 15 ml of medication to your patient but only have a teaspoon how many teaspoons should you give now a lot of people get questions like this and they just obsess over how do I set up the question how do I do the little graphs and which one do I put the number where to multiply blah blah blah it gets so confusing but what I want you to do is say what do I have and what do they want me to give well I need to administer 15 ml Zin medication so it's in MLS but all I got is a little old tea spoon I hope you don't have the Big Lots tea spoon I hope you have a fancy tea spoon from the Walmart or somewhere anyway a tea spoon well how many you need to convert every day everything to the same same unit so how many teaspoons is one that's 5 ml so if you have 15 ml as a medication to give 5/3 sorry 15 divided by 5 is going to give you 3 so you can take 15 ml divided by each teaspoon which is 5 MLS and that's going to give you 15 divided by 5 or 3 teaspoons I hope I didn't mix that up when I was crossing my words I'm a bit dyslexic sometimes it gets a little confusing for my own myself but if you get confused ride it out and what you need to remember is compare it back to what you're doing and say well lower work backwards if I use 3 tea spoons and each of them are 5 MLS well then I multiply that's gonna give me 15 ml of medication which is how much I need to give with these types of questions I always go back and do a logic check to really make sure that that's what I'm supposed to do let's move on to some more fun and exciting stuff the metric system right depending on where you're at in the world watching this video you may find this part easier or a little more difficult depending on how familiar you are with it now I'm not going to go into that super details of each one of these but you really kind of need to know what these mean first off are the big ones kilo you've got to remember that kilo itself means thousand now kilo gram means one thousand grams so a thousand kilo is a thousand one thousand and then you've got deca which means ten so a deca deca is 10 1 zero then essentially you've got zero and then everything else is divided by its 1 a percentage right so we have deci now deci is 1/10 or 0.1 and remember every time we're doing pharmacology math pharmacology math never forget that leading zero I have so much fun right marking questions wrong and answers wrong when people don't put that leading zero in there because in the real world when you go and you put dot something you don't know whether there's a dot there let me tell you how many times that dot doesn't show up and if this is zero that way you know to look for a zero because you don't write numbers that start with zero normally unless it's a percentage or a fraction so deci is 1/10 Sinti remember a centimeter is one hundredth that's one divided by hundred 100 0.01 milli we're gonna talk about in a second is 1000 so 1 divided by a thousand or 0.001 and of course micro is 1 million and that's zero point zero zero zero zero one now another important thing to remember it remember that I put on here and I see this confused a lot is that one milliliter right one milliliter of volume one milliliter of volume is equal to one cubic centimeter or a CC so 1 ml equals CC so if you need to give 50 cc's of something that's 50 MLS you need to give 25 CCS of something that's 25 MLS don't mix that up and that's just something that I see thrown in there just love to confuse people with that one because it's no fun and evil I don't know somebody needs something better to do it right now as we move on to conversions and we talked about the metric system we need to do four big categories that you're going to see on almost all of your exams kilograms grams milligrams and micrograms kg g mg and MCG when you're reading questions and you see examples you've got to pay attention to what those little letters say and for somebody like me who barely pays attention what I read you've got to see mg and MC gee you're gonna mix it up don't don't be that person because those are easy points to lose you're just gonna feel dumb and it's really hard to kick yourself more than five times in one day right let's look at some examples so what's really important when you are converting these if you're going from kilograms something large all the way over here to something small you need to multiply the numbers so you multiply to go smaller well what's really important if we're going from kilograms and I need grams well I know I need to multiply by a thousand and that's what we're gonna do in these examples a day from grams to milligrams again multiply by a thousand and so forth but haven't gone the other way right or there there sorry what if we're going the other way well we need to divide so if we're going from micro grams to milligrams milligrams to grams or grams to kilograms or all the way across we need to divide those numbers so we divide the number we need to get to the number the larger number and we're going to work through some examples because this probably sounded confusing if you take one kilogram right one kilogram now we know one kilogram is equal to how many grams well one kilogram we're going this way so one kilogram is going to be equal to one thousand grams now one gram one gram is equal to one thousand milligrams so we see how we're going across here and one milligram moving over is equal to one thousand milligrams micrograms sorry and you were gonna use this as we go across and as we practice so you can follow along and with our practice questions that we're gonna do here in a minute so one kilogram one kilogram equals a thousand grams 1 million milligrams and then 1 billion micrograms right now right so how do we get that or we take one and we multiply again by a thousand to get one thousand grams one thousand times a thousand is 1 million and 1 million times a thousand is 1 billion micrograms now if you're the kind of person that moves the decimal point with the little line that's great you can do that too but I'm not gonna go over that example right here right now because it's a little bit confusing for what we're gonna go over if you use that method great you can still follow along but use your little decimal point just slide it on over and write on your paper that's up to you let's move on now what if I have five kilograms so five kilograms equals how many grams 5,000 that's right so five times 1,000 equals five thousand grams now how many milligrams five million you're getting you're catching on and how many micrograms times a thousand is five billion micrograms right yeah I know right I did pretty good so let's do some examples that you actually have to do some math that thing you can't do in your head now see if you could do these yourself you need to pause it fine because I kind of talk fast I get excited but we're gonna go over lots of different examples you see if you can get them and then we're gonna apply to real-world questions in a moment so for grams if you have 4 grams how many milligrams is that did you say four thousand milligrams that's right so four grams go it were going this way we're going over here so times 1,000 is 4,000 milligrams that's right now what about 0.25 grams you're gonna get a lot of questions that try to trick you like this 0.25 grams 0.25 grams is how many milligrams well 0.25 times a thousand is 250 milligrams did you get that right good you're so smart now what about 1.25 grams one point two five grams is equal to how many milligrams 1250 right 1250 milligrams again 1.25 times a thousand twelve hundred fifty milligrams great now they're gonna get harder yes I know we're working up to it just calm down just stop stop screaming at the screen we're gonna get there geez they get hard there's tricks 800 milligrams 800 milligrams is how many grams hmm changed it didn't it 800 milligrams is how many grams well now we're going 800 and we're going to a larger gram what do we do well we need to divide 800 divided by 1,000 equals 0.8 grams that's correct now when you're writing this is 0.8 don't forget that little zero point are you gonna get it wrong I'd mark it wrong and I'd have so much fun marking your answer wrong you just don't even know it would be great to be so happy just big red X let's move on sorry I had a moment 500 grams 500 grams equals how many kilograms well we're going there going that way right 500 grams is how many great kilograms well 500 divided by a thousand 0.5 kilograms again don't forget your leading zero what about two thousand one hundred and fifty milligrams two thousand one hundred and fifty milligrams is how many kilograms hmm now we're getting tricky what do you do here well two thousand one hundred and fifty milligrams well you're going to grams and then two kilograms right so you multi-device sorry two thousand one hundred fifty divided by a thousand and then you divide it by a thousand again don't forget the steps sounds really stupid but you don't want to miss those easy points so two thousand one hundred fifty milligrams divided by a thousand then divided by a thousand again is zero point zero zero two one five kilograms and this is where those people who used move the zero across six spaces could make themselves maybe go a little faster but it gets more confusing I recommend doing the math 20 150 divided by a thousand divided by a thousand again to get zero point zero zero two one five kilograms so let's go on to more conversions now like I said they're gonna get a little bit tougher 1/4 of a pound two milligrams hmm confusing right well that's the point of these exams is it try to confuse you nursing instructors are evil trust me I know you're thinking about yours right now just think about it screen the name out loud and throw a punch but don't hit the screen don't do that just scream it let's all stress so 1/4 of a pound milligrams well first off you got to get away from pounds pounds are big pounds are just flabby and gross you need to go to kilograms right so 1/4 of a pound well first off 1/4 pound is not even can't really do much with a fraction so if you take 1/4 1/4 is going to give you zero point 2 5 pounds don't make that mistake do that one right away so you got 0.25 pounds 0.25 pounds to kilograms how do we get that again remember pounds are larger numbers so 0.25 pounds divided by 2.2 is going to give us a smaller petite number remember the pounds just piling up on the midsection or your thighs or wherever it goes they're smaller in kilograms we like that metric system it's so cute so 0.25 divided by 2.2 is going to give you 0 point 1 1 3 6 kilograms a smaller number right but that's not where we're gonna stop if I was an instructor I would put this on your exam as the possible answer and I get 25% of me every time I have so much fun just putting my red pin right through your answer being mm-hmm got it wrong didn't pay attention that's right because the answer is not what you need you need milligrams not kilograms don't make that mistake pay attention so how do we get there just a couple more steps it's easy from here we know that we need to go to grams first so zero point one one three six times a thousand is going to give us a hundred and thirteen point six grams but don't stop there what you need to do is multiply by a thousand again to get a hundred and thirteen point six times a thousand giving you a hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred grams that's right milligrams sorry hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred milligrams and that is the correct answer what you can see here is this was lots of different steps and you know what the math is pretty easy the steps are pretty easy but what I can tell you every single time on these dag on tests is something's gonna trip you up it's so stupid and you're going to trip you're gonna just kick yourself afterwards you're gonna forget to treat the right conversion the right fraction the wrong decimal point every single time you just have to practice and then make sure you don't miss the easy stuff don't miss converting two pounds to kilograms kilograms to pounds don't mess that up and make sure once you're done with the question stop and they don't want you to say did I get the right answer in milligrams because you don't know how many times you're gonna have milligrams or grams or kilograms and those are gonna be your answer choices and you're gonna stop and think you had the right answer and it's gonna be wrong and your instructors just laugh and haha got you and you're gonna be sad cuz you got a bad score hmm okay now now for some other crap that no one uses anymore but I see it on tests all the time and it just makes me want to punch the screen please don't punch the screen there's three things really only one of them important the first one is a dream a dream a dream is stupid I don't see it so I haven't seen it or heard of it on the inc Lex or standardized exams for a long time but I see you sometimes some students used to write in to me and tell me that they would see it on their exams maybe their instructor truly is evil also 150 years old a dream is approximately eight dreams is one ounce now what's a dream well it had something to do with whiskey it was Scottish or Irish I can't remember but a dream was like a tiny little little baby baby shot I like some whiskey or something back in the day I don't know a long time ago but eight of them is an ounce I don't really think that one's important now the one that I will see test it a lot and it's so stupid I literally hate it is it grain one grain so this is one you just got to write down don't forget it one grain equals sixty-four point seven nine milligrams or 65 and that's pretty all you really need to know now just for fun because once in a billion years I see this is a scruple a scruple is an apothecary term and it's equal to about 20 grains not gonna see it on any standardized exam but for those evil nursing instructors out there especially the nursing stories I see a pop up from time to time and I get so many right senses what's a scruple why isn't on my exam why do I hate my life why did I do this well now you note one scruples 20 grains 20 grains is one grain is equal to sixty four point seven nine milligrams you can do the math so just know grain one grain sixty-four point seven nine milligrams I like to just remember 65 because you know what 65 is the retirement age in my opinion and you're out of here just like grain should be gone soon I can't wait now more practice questions these are the real life practice questions the ones that are hard when I'm gonna make you want to just love your life and get so excited I just oh my goodness and I just like to point out again we got lots of our crazy my crazy images in here from the pic Monica learning system you can check them out yourself now when you're answering these calculation type questions you've really got to make sure you don't miss any the easy stuff math is so easy you guys can do this you know the multiplication tables right but what happens is you get so obsessed over setting up a question doing lots of things you forget all the easy stuff so what are some things you really need to know in general this applies for all pharmacology math you really got to say what's the question asking me what is the question asked me to do don't forget that what's a total dose that I'm supposed to give what have I been given don't miss that and of course make sure you convert everything to whatever they're asking you to give and then calculate to that form and then calculate the dose and we're going to go over some examples and I'm right along here as we go over more real-life questions which are more fun or more difficult whatever you say I don't mind but one things it's important and I you're not gonna see these usually on pharmacology math if you're in a pharmacology math test but you may see it if you have a combined test where math is part of your nursing correct or whatever curriculum you're in the administration five rights of medication administration these are so important and I see this this also applies to real-life medication errors of them are very very very common and for dumb reasons and you're looking to think of a boards I just don't know why they did that well they messed up their rights of medication administration you giving it to the right patient at the right time is it time for that are you giving the right drug is the drug appropriate and is it the right route so routes of administration we're gonna make a video on that and is it the right dose the right dose the right amount the right time the right patient don't forget those and of course the right to refuse patients can always refuse they always refuse the good medication don't forget they don't refuse that pain medicine do they know mmm never you'll get there and then of course the right documentation you've got a document and of course the medication rights you see some different variations of this but they're pretty much the same now let's get on with its practice questions a provider is ordered as if through Meissen 0.25 grams P o to be administered daily the nurse has 125 milligram tablets on hand how many tablets should them a nurse administer I think I almost said Merce I'm not sure now what do you need to do first now this question may come super easy to you if it does good great but don't miss the steps cuz you're gonna miss things later when maybe you're not paying as much attention so what's the first thing you need to do well what does the question asking me well it's asking me how many tablets should the nurse administer how many tablets how many tablets of 125 milligrams should the administer well you wanted miss her 125 milligrams but the order I'm sorry you have hundred 25 milligram tablets but the order is 4 grams 0.25 grams so you've got to convert so what you need to do of course is say how many milligram tablets daily in your question and then the total that you need to actually give as if ur Meissen 0.25 grams pío pío means by mouth if you haven't got there and every day and you've been given the 125 milligram tablets so let's calculate it 0.25 grams means nothing because you have 125 milligram tablets so remember our little conversion grams to milligrams what are you gonna do multiplied by a thousand yep we know you're screaming at the screen and that equals 250 milligrams so you need to give 250 milligrams every day that's your dose well if you have 125 milligram tablets what do you do now well you've got 250 milligrams to give and you take 250 milligrams you divide it by the amount you have on hand at 125 and it's going to give you 2 or 2 tablets so the answer to 125 milligram tablets pio daily for azithromycin that's your answer you could play it again and really think through it to make sure you got it if this confuses you you probably missed one of the steps just take a step back and follow along now next this one's great and order states you must administer metoprolol succinate 400,000 micrograms twice daily how much do you administer each dose you have and it gives you one of those lovely little drug labels I love drug labels these are the best questions honestly I hate these that gave me anxiety when I was in school and I wanted to die however you've got one Merry Christmas now what do you do well what's the answer take a second to see if you can figure this out did you get the right answer well this is a trick question because I'm an evil nursing instructor and if I was your instructor I would be laughing all day just mark and X is all over the place having so much fun with you why because you missed up one of the most common rights of medication administration because you know what this little nugget says ah the rights of medication administration now maybe you don't know that metoprolol succinate is different than metoprolol tartrate hmm well I'm sorry I'm an evil nursing instructor remember that's right and that's what's going to happen I doubt you're gonna really be given this but I put this in here to make an evil point and that is you've got to read the question because so many times in the questions you're going to be given something that's just so off it's gonna be just one word off and it throws the entire question off every single time mm-hmm well good for me I put one for dr. Wyatt over here and zero for you unless you saw it and then well we're gonna give you a half point for a good merit so what's the point well metoprolol succinate you can see here on the label metoprolol tartrate and what I can tell you on a standardized exam it's going to say exactly it's not gonna have any other weird crap on there and that's what's really important now can you answer this question no you can't because if you pick two tablets you did the right math great for you but you're wrong because you can't give the wrong medication and actually metoprolol succinate is a long-acting medication and tartrates a fast-acting medication of the exact same medication they're just different formulations so you would again you would have doubled the dose of the patient hmm bad for you the answer is just not enough information or it's incorrect that's what's important now let's look at another one maybe is a little more appropriate in order States you must administer metoprolol tartrate two hundred thousand micrograms twice daily how much do you administer each dose you have on hand another drug label what's the answer take a moment to see if you can figure it out of course this medication is the correct one because I tricked you last time why would I do it again right mm-hmm did you get the answer well let's work through it together so two hundred thousand micrograms twice daily that's what you need to give so what you need to do of course micrograms is not gonna do you any good what you know is well what's in the question and what's the answer need to have well the answer needs to have milligrams and your question has micrograms so the first thing you should do is convert everything to what you have on hand or what the answer is now you have two hundred thousand micrograms two hundred thousand so two hundred thousand micrograms well what are you going to do to move that to me grams you're gonna divide cuz it's going over right and if you divide 200,000 divided by a thousand it's gonna give you 200 milligrams so then you know how much do you need to give twice daily 200 milligrams twice daily makes the question a lot more simple to be able to answer in your head right so if you need to give 200 milligrams twice daily well what do you need to do well you need to take 200 milligrams and divide it by 2 to give you a 100 milligrams okay makes more sense now you need to give 100 milligrams twice 100 milligrams each dose twice daily so then you're going to be able to see that you need to give one tablet each dose and what's gonna happen you're gonna get a lot of these these are actually really simple questions but if you don't follow the same process every time they're gonna trip you up you've got to take a step back number one read the question number two make sure you're given the right amount of what it's asking you to give and what the answer says because metoprolol heart rate as you can see you may get tripped up by one of those easy little tricks and I have so much fun doing those every single time but don't miss the easy stuff and these are actually really easy questions you're gonna look at these five years from now and you're just gonna laugh at how easy they are yeah I know it seems hard now the answer is one one tablet and if you got that good for you now let's move on to another lovely question I know you're so excited a physician is ordered amoxicillin 1.5 grams over three timed and divided doses daily which of the following should you administer hmmm take a moment and see if you can get the answer did you get the correct answer well what are you supposed to do here what is the question asking me well it says I need to administer amoxicillin 1.5 grams over three times and divided doses daily so it's a couple of different ways to go about tackling one right away but you can look at the answers well you can read all the answers ahead of time probably just gonna confuse you but what's important to know about the answers is all of them are in milligrams or not enough information I always just when I guess just picked not enough information to move on next question I don't know no don't do that that's a bad answer so amoxicillin 1.5 grams over three times and divided two doses daily so how long is daily 24 hours that's right good for you you passed first grade second grade I don't know where it is what's important to do first well first off we do we know we're given grams and we need milligrams so we've got to convert grams to milligrams make sure you don't miss the easy stuff remember so first we've got 1 grams in the question and milligrams and the answers so 1.5 grams times a thousand is going to give us what 1,500 milligrams that's the first step what do we need to do next well one of the next steps is really to say well we need to give 1500 milligrams in 24 hours right that's the total in 24 hours but that's not what the question is asking us some questions do this one's saying 20 over 24 hours we want to give 1500 milligrams in three timed and divided doses so what does that mean well how many times just how many hours are in a day 24 how many would three doses be well that means it's going to be three every eight hours right three goes into 24 eight times so eight every eight hours so of course if we take the exact same thing and we have our 1,500 milligrams and we divide that by our three doses that's gonna give us 500 milligrams each dose so 500 milligrams and how many 24 hours here we go 24 divided by 3 is going to give us every eight hours so every daily three times and divided doses 24 hours divided by three is eight hours so there the frequency is every eight hours and our dose every eight hours is 500 milligrams but we're still not done and that is why these questions are so confusing so what happens is if you really can't think through it and conceptualize what's going on you get confused because the answers here are very confusing they're made to trip you up because I'm an evil nursing instructor remember I really am ooh this this is the face of evil anyway sorry I can open what are the choices well we know if you are really good and you know that first off you figured out eight hours let's say you just got that well there are four choices here with eight hours but maybe you made a little shortcut and you know you just need to give 500 milligrams the answer you thought you needed to give was 500 because you stopped there 500 you want to pick number four and you would have been wrong because 500 milligram tablets every six hours make sure you read all of the answers so if we need to give 500 milligrams every eight hours there are no 500 milligram choices in our answers right because it's even more complex and that's what you're going to see here 500 milligrams every eight hours well six hours is out so number four just scratch it off the list what do you have left well you need something that equals 500 milligrams every eight hours so you have to reverse engineer the answers so one 300 milligram tablet nope wrong one 250 milligram tablet wrong - 250 milligrams tablets every eight hours sounds like it's not um oh wait what's happened now more evilness right yeah exactly one 250 milligram tablet any hours is wrong but to 250 milligram tablets every eight hours that's correct that equals 500 milligrams every eight hours but number five is five 100 milligram tablets Avery every eight hours oh my goodness must have made a mistake right no no this is an evil question there's lots of evilness in here it's the amount of evilness in this question you have no idea so what's the correct answer well if yeah I was gonna give you some pills how many pills would you really want to swallow one - 25 or 100 it's not 100 it's not 25 you want to take the least amount of pills possible unless your pocketbook can't afford it but on the NCLEX and every other standardized exam you can afford it so the answer is the least number of pills possible even if it's the same dosage and that's the answer so what's the answer here it's not 5 100 milligram tablets ABR every 8 hours it's to 250 milligrams Ablett's every 8 hours for a dose of 500 milligrams each eight-hour dose for a total dose of you guessed it 1500 milligrams or 1.5 grams Wow that was really confusing that's right it was meant to be these are the kind of questions that if I wrote tests I would put these in every single question because they're so fun and I just like to sit back with my big red X and just mark it all off as people get them wrong but it's so easy to take a couple of steps back and just apply some basic principles number one make sure you're always putting it in the same form grams to milligrams you need to convert if you forgot to convert here you've probably got it wrong and of course making sure the last little step that I didn't put a new the other questions are you need to have it in the smallest amount possible you're very likely to see two of the exact same dosages that are correct but maybe one has five pills and the other one has 1.3 I don't know but our four pills versus one you always want to have the least number of pills possible and that's where just some more evilness likes to take in effect so the answer is number three to 250 milligrams Ablett's every eight hours here's one more question a physician's ordered zero point two seven milligrams levothyroxine now which of the following should you administer and here's another drug label synthroid levothyroxine sodium tablets 137 micrograms hmm shucks so what's the answer well this one's actually not that difficult is the last one there aren't nearly as many tricks in this one and that's on purpose to make you feel a little bit better so you don't cry when you go to bed tonight zero point two seven four milligrams is what you need to give and you have Micra so what do you need to do well if you have the questions in milligrams and you need to give micrograms because that's the tablets you have on hand what do you need to do you need to convert zero point two seven milligrams times 1000 remember equals 274 micrograms that's really important don't miss the easy stuff if we have two hundred and seventy four micrograms we need to give now remember this equals the dose we need to give now then what we need to do is take what we have on hand my head itches take what we have on hand which are a hundred and thirty seven microgram tablets and divide that in the dose we need to give 274 micrograms divided by a hundred and thirty-seven equals two did you get the answer to I hope you did because there's no evilness here I didn't do that to you but I bet you read this question carefully didn't you it did you're welcome the answer is number three two tablets so you're gonna give two tablets in the medication don't miss the easy step even though the questions seem easy I guarantee you there's tricks in there because I'm not the only evil nursing instructor out there well wasn't that fun that's it that's all we've got today I really appreciate you tuning in check out to lots of our other videos if there's something you're interested in you want to see you need to learn I don't know send me a message you can go down there and push a little like and subscribe button and you can check oh there it is right there you can check out the other video spine click in there subscribe like share with your friend I don't know tell your dog I don't know we appreciate you watching today i'm dr. kinder wyatt good luck studying

Channel: Kendall Wyatt MD

Views: 91,667

Rating: 4.8914404 out of 5

Keywords: pharmacology math, nursing pharm math, pharmacology math beginners, pharm math for dummies, nursing pharmacology math, conversions, medical math, ml to ounces, basic medical math, pounds to kilograms, pharmacology math simple, pharmacology nursing math, dr wyatt, dr wyatt camc, nursing iv calculations, dosage calculation, nursing dosage calculations made easy, nursing dosage calculations for dummies

Id: eJhHKJdrKXg

Length: 52min 47sec (3167 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2018